Designer Erik Campbell was charged with putting a modern spin on the original chorded keyboard, a one-handed input device that lets users type characters with key-press combinations, like playing chords on a piano. For inspiration, he looked to the jellyfish.

The original chorded keyboard, designed by Doug Engelbart in 1968, was boxy and beige. For his redesign, Campbell went for something more natural, settling on a jellyfish-inspired shape to fit the curve of the hand. But what does it do? Well, it makes your QWERTY seem downright wasteful.

Advertisement

The chorded keyset can type anything your computer's keyboard can, just by using combinations of its five buttons:

Oh yeah, it works as a mouse, too. Campbell's is only a design—his jellyfish is definitely more elegant than the little scarab in that video—but from the looks of things there are still some people out there keeping the chorded keyset alive. I give them a big, spacebar-thumping thumbs up. [Walyou]